Give With All Your ‘Mite’

EditorialbyMarguerite Theophil

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As I get ready to write a cheque I will hand over today, Easter Sunday, to a wonderful group working for the education of young children from slums around a church, I am nostalgically reminded of a beautiful tradition in the Anglican church of my childhood, where at the beginning of Lent, our Sunday School teachers gave out to each of us a ‘Mite Box’, to bring back on Easter Sunday, recalls MARGUERITE THEOPHIL

Our Mite Boxes were actually handmade, round clay pots with a slit for coins on top — the kind of ‘piggy-bank’ that had to be broken to get at the coins inside. In later years, I noticed cardboard boxes, sometimes precut and printed, sometimes the kind that children folded, cut and stuck together, and decorated with paints and stickers, even wrote their names on. Other friends in other places recall less interesting plastic boxes, jam jars or even Zip-loc bags.

Into the box, whatever shape or form it took, was supposed to go the money we saved from giving up something for Lent. Some children gave up sweets and other treats, others did extra chores around the house, and some took on tasks for neighbours so we could put more coins into our boxes.

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The money raised went to assist those who had less than we did. It taught us as young children an awareness of inequality, of our privileges, and of our responsibility to other people. I feel blessed that my parents refused to give me, as some grownups did, a sum at the end “... to just fill those darn boxes”, but made me keep it somewhere visible, made me feel responsible about my promise, and reminded me from time to time that this was an ongoing commitment.

A ‘mite’ refers to a tiny amount, and the term comes from a lovely Biblical story from the Gospel of Mark, we know as The Widow’s Mite.

It tells of Jesus, who sat down in the temple, opposite the place where the offerings were being made, and watched the crowd putting into the ‘treasury’ the money they donated for various causes. We can imagine large containers, and the noticeable loud tinkling or clunking sound of many heavy coins thrown in. Jesus noticed this giving for a while, as many rich people came up and conspicuously threw in large amounts.

Then he noticed a poor widow who came in and timidly put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny, or as they were called in old English, ‘mites’.

Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

The story is a reminder of the grace of giving out of sacrifice; that ‘how’ we share can matter more than ‘how much’ we share. The story is also a reminder of faith — the widow’s mite was an act of faith, faith in God to supply her needs, to take care of her, even if she put in everything she had, all she had to live on.

Instead of ‘mite boxes’, some churches and groups call them ‘blessing boxes’ or ‘mission boxes’ or ‘thanks-offering boxes’. And while it does feel satisfying as a grown-up to be able to write out a cheque, I remember the special feeling of the clink of the little coins, of the box getting satisfyingly heavier each week, of the sheer joy of carrying the boxes to the table in church designated for the offerings and placing them there with all the other similar boxes brought in by the other Sunday School children. Now, with all the similar-looking boxes clustered together, you could not tell who had brought which box; who had collected the smallest or largest amount. All were piled together — an expression of young children learning that their neighbours included those unseen and unknown other children that their giving would help have better lives, in small yet meaningful and lovingly connective ways.